Clergy Killers and the Preacher's Family

            A friend of mine who works at a Bible college told me PK’s are about 3 or 4 years ahead of their non-PK peers when it comes to ministry.  Most guys entering the ministry have a pretty steep learning curve about living in the ministry.  PK’s have lived it all their lives.  Another friend of mine, who was formerly a minister but left the ministry to be a councilor said, “Preacher’s kids are the first round draft picks for the church.  But when they see their dad being beaten up by churches, they decide they don’t want to go into the ministry.  When that happens, we not only lose future ministers, we lose the best future ministers.”

            As we look at the effect of clergy killers, the most painful aspect for me personally is the effect it has on the children and spouse of the minister.  I have to admit that I am tempted at this point to go into a very personal expose of what happened to my children at the hands of dysfunctional church people.  If I were to identify my single greatest failure over the last 30 years, it is that I did not protect my children adequately.  If I had it to do over, I would do a few things differently.  (We have four kids.  I will give four examples, but many more are available)

·      When my daughter complained that they didn’t do much Bible study I should have told the youth leader, “My child’s spiritual well being is too important for you to waste the opportunity!  The valuable time set aside for discipleship will not be spent on idiotic games and trivialities.  Your job is not to recover the awkward years of your teens and try to be cool.”

·      I would tell an individual, “My daughter doesn’t need to apologize to you.  You are in the wrong and that is all there is to it.”

·      I would tell the mother of a spoiled brat, “You son was misbehaving and my daughter, as a nursery volunteer, was keeping him from being a bully; she will not apologize to you or your son.”

·      I would tell another person, “You sent my eight year old son into a dangerous situation because you thought you could tell him what to do.  You, sir, are an idiot, and if you ever do something like that again I will have you arrested.”

In each case, for the sake of ‘peace’ in the congregation we opted to have our children be the bigger person and we gave way.  I was wrong and I regret it deeply.  I am very close to my children, but I know that my failure to protect my children from unhealthy people in our churches has negatively impacted their faith.

            If I have at this moment the privilege of addressing young ministers with young children, let me offer you some broken hearted advice.  Always choose the side of what is right.  If you kids are in the wrong, discipline them appropriately.  But if dysfunctional people are victimizing them even in the smallest way, defend them. You will be better off looking for a job because you were fired from a hellhole church than looking at regret years later.   And these four crazies didn’t get better because we capitulated. In fact, they got worse because of the capitulation.

            It is not just the PK’s that suffer.  The silent, suffering award may go to the pastor’s wife.  Being a PK, I saw early the presumptuousness with which congregations treat the minister’s wife.  I know of no other industry where it would be acceptable for an employer to, in the hiring process, inquire how the spouse can help the company.   The preacher’s wife is seen as a free employee, one that is often treated poorly.  My wife was “asked to serve” in the music department in one church I served. Her job was to select the music, play the piano and help with special music.  One Sunday she replaced the “Doxology” with “Holy, Holy, Holy, Lord God Almighty”.  An elder’s meeting was called to discuss this breech of protocol, and my wife was informed, in no uncertain terms, that she was not to make changes to the worship service without the approval of the elders.  Being both humble and holy she said nothing and continued to serve.  In hindsight, I wish I had stood between my wife and those cowards in the elder’s office. 

            Many ministers serve the church like a workaholic in hopes of keeping the critics quiet, all the while neglecting his wife.  Many a minister’s wife feels that the church has become a mistress to her husband, who gets all his best.  The matter is complicated by her feelings that if she complains about the church’s demands she is rejecting God, and is some how unholy.

            A minister must not allow his employment with a church to wreck his marriage.   I recently read that 77% of pastors felt they did not have a good marriage and 38% of pastors said they were divorced or currently in a divorce process!  This is a complicated issue and one that will not be resolved in this essay.  But I would like to offer a suggestion that my wife and I use.  It has empowered my wife’s confidence and has taken the insecurity out of her relationship with the church.  My wife has my permission to turn in my resignation at anytime she wishes, for any reason she wishes.  I have told her, “If you see that this job is hurting us, hurting our family, our faith, or doing damage in anyway, you have my permission to turn in my resignation.  Please let me know you are doing this, but you have that right.”  Tell your board that you wife can end the job and it will have a profound effect on the way they treat her and your kids.  Trust you wife; she is most likely a great treasure.

            Finally, ministers suffer from the work of clergy killers.  In my last church, the stress was off the charts.  I went to my doctor with chest pains and found that my heart was in excellent condition; I was not in danger of a heart attack.  I was sort of disappointed.  I realized I had developed a ‘holy’ death wish.  I could never take my own life, but if I died of natural causes, I would be out of the misery at work and I could go to heaven.  (If you are feeling this way today, please call a qualified councilor TODAY or if need be call me, 352-548-4837)  At about this time my wife told me I was turning into a wraith.  She said, “You are like Frodo after he got stabbed on Weather Top; you are fading away.  I barely recognize you any more.”  With her support and help, I got out of a sick church.

            Many ministers know they need to get out, but are so deeply wounded that they can’t see a way.  A colleague of mine who works with wounded clergy related a story of the profound length a minister would go to in order to escape.    He related the case of a minister who was caught in sexual misconduct.  As they worked together to unpack what transpired the fallen minister finally said, “I couldn’t quit the ministry; I had to be thrown out.  I knew that if I (here he referred to his specific behavior), I would be fired and could never go back to any church, any where.”  One wonders how many of the 30% of pastors who said they had either been in an ongoing affair or a one-time sexual encounter with a parishioner were really about wanting a way out.  I am not condoning or making excuses for sinful behavior.  I am saying that a minister under attack by clergy killers is capable of some very dangerous and destructive behaviors.  I am also saying there are better options.

Next week, we will look at what might be done to curb the destructive power and attacks of clergy killers.  

Clergy Killers hurt their own churches.

My original intent was to write a short essay about ministers suffering at the hands of unscrupulous people in their congregation.  But as I wrote, talked and corresponded with preachers, it grew into three essays; Pervasiveness of Clergy Attacks, The Effects of Clergy Attacks and Possible Solutions.  But, after additional conversations and questions, it has grown again.

Today, I want to begin to look at the implications of the crisis in ministry caused by those who attack their ministers. Hoping to deal with this issue in a single essay, I concluded it would be better to have a few short essays in a series. 

After looking at the effects of clergy killers, we will talk about what might be done to help this situation at a personal, congregational, and Kingdom level.  I will also offer a resource page of websites, books, and organizations that can help preachers in crisis.  

“Frozen by the Fear in Me”

Violinist Lindsey Stirling and vocalist Lizzy Hale in their song “Shatter Me” (https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=49tpIMDy9BE) seem, in many ways, to be singing about life in ministry:  Feelings of being trapped, of being set on a pedestal and expected to perform, of being on the verge of shattering, and of being frozen by fears. Forgive me if I am being overly dramatic, but for the minister in the midst of an attack those feeling are very real. 

Last week, we took a look at the staggering loss of ministers as we looked at the numbers, but now let’s look at it at a more congregational level, specifically, what the effects are of clergy killers on their individual congregations.  What does it mean for congregations when their ministers are driven off/and or out of the ministry?

Congregational Impact

I once served a congregation experiencing rapid growth.  That growth was not well received by some of the founding members.  We were bringing in the “wrong kinds” of people.  One of these people was a young, recovering, drug addict.  He relapsed and his relapse created a very minor ripple for the church.  At a meeting called by the founding core, one bitter elderly lady said, “We don’t want that kind of person in our church.”  That mean-spirited dysfunction can be redirected toward the minister. When antagonists learn they are able to oust a preacher they don’t like, the congregation can be held hostage to the will of a vocal minority. The church can even become an extension of the dysfunctional personality of the antagonist.  Given enough time and control the church will eventually exist to suit the whims and desires of those people.  Anytime a person or group is able to assert their will by force of power the church will begin to morph into the image of that person or group.  This pattern, once established, will have four results. 

The first result is the church will likely develop a high turnover rate in ministry.  I talked with one minister that reported a turn over rate that averaged 26 months for the senior minster.  This average included three ministers that stayed between 6 and 10 years each. A few ministers came and went in as little as 18 months.  Speaking of the same church, another preacher told me, “Every preacher has left that church under a cloud of firing, forced resignation, or the realization his days were numbered.”  The church was called, “The Church of the Blessed Revolving Door.”   I suspect you know these kinds of churches.

The second result is these kinds of churches generally do not make disciples.  A pastor on a short tenure will not have time to develop the relationships that will lead to disciple making.  In two years a minister is still learning his way around the community and the church culture.  In that period of time he may lead folks to Christ and see them converted, but long before they have matured in their faith the church will go through a ministerial transition.  It is somewhat unlikely, that in such a church this new believer will have been incorporated into many discipleship-making relationships.  In fact, this new convert maybe shunned by the antagonist for fear that he may in some way represent a threat.

The revolving door phenomenon can be seen in the cyclic growth and decline of churches.  A church of a given size hires a minister, having said all the right things about growing.  As the church grows, issues develop, often, but not always, around power or allocation of resources for ministry.   Conflict begins to develop, growth stops, and decline begins.  In one example, antagonists withheld their giving and then sighted the decline in giving as indications it was time for a new minister.  Fast forward to the preacher’s dismissal, and those who have come to faith during the departed pastor’s ministry drift away without anyone noticing and the church returns to its original, given size.   The process is begun again, with the right sounding talk about commitment to growth.   If you find a church with a frequent turn over in the senior minister position, you will likely find this cyclic growth.  Eventually, the cycle will flatten with highs not being so high and lows slowly growing gradually smaller.  Eventually, the church will revolve ministers in and out with out any real change in attendance.  This can be the first sign of congregational death.

Third and related to this cyclic pattern is the collateral damage done to new believers.  This is perhaps the most tragic of the effects of the clergy killers.  New believers often have a ringside seat to see the brutalization of a pastor who loved them into the Kingdom of God.  Having seen this, they often leave the church and have a very difficult time returning to any house of worship.  I live across the street from a man who was caught in the cross fire of a clergy attack.  By his own confession, he was a worldly man when he came to faith in Christ.  He became very active in church worship and service.  In the midst of a clergy attack he experienced “Things I never saw, even in the Navy.”  While he still calls himself a Christian, he is completely disengaged from the church and will likely remain so.   It would be wonderful if he were a rarity.  It is my opinion, based on observations, that most new believers who leave the church as collateral damage of the clergy killers never regain a vibrant faith.

Finally, churches will have less experienced ministers leading them.  Most of us will admit that when we entered ministry after graduation, we were not really prepared for the life of ministry.  We were more like college professors than pastors.  Ministry is thoroughly practical and hands-on; an academic setting can never prepare you for the hospital call when the diagnosis is late stage cancer.  That is when you learn by gutting it out with on-the-job training, grace, and prayer.  It took several years of on- the-job training for us to become proficient in the arts of ministry.  Currently, half of pastors will leave ministry as a career within 7 to 10 years, meaning that about the time a minister begins to hit his stride of effective ministry, he will be leaving. 

Let’s use a sports analogy.  If competing worldviews are NFL teams, then Team Christian-World-View is staffed and will only always be staffed by rookies, second year players and only one or two veterans.  Such a team would be crushed on the field of play.  Consider how we in the church are loosing ‘market share’ for the hearts and minds of our people. 

I do not believe the Church will fold because of the attack on ministers.  But I do believe a great many churches will die needlessly and others will loose their effectiveness as agents of the gospel.  I do not believe this is an accident; but rather, I believe the enemy of the souls of men and the church is orchestrating and is pleased with these results. 

For the sake of the church, we need to take action in dealing with clergy killers. 

Next week, we will look at the results that clergy killers can have on the ministry, family, and the soul of the minister.

Clergy Killers

A couple of weeks ago I got a splinter in my finger.  Relative to the size of my body it was almost too small to measure.  Its length, diameter and mass were tiny.  Nevertheless, this tiny fragment of wood, about an eighth of an inch long, buried itself on the corner of my index finger right next to the nail.  It also went in completely making an easy extraction impossible.  For the next few moments extracting this splinter was a major priority.  It was hard to think about anything except dealing with the splinter.  Not only was it uncomfortable, it made doing other things difficult. It weighted less than a millionth of my total body weight, but it was having a profound effect on my whole person.

So it is with the clergy killers. When a minister is under attack it is difficult for him to think of anything else.  The church that is going through the throws of a minister assault is generally not very effective in any of its ministries.  Churches in conflict simply do not make disciples, or impact their community in any positive way.  These troublesome people are called by numerous names, “Well Intentioned Dragons”, “Clergy Abusers”, “Antagonist”, “Wolves in Sheep’s Clothing”; call them what you will, they are a growing problem in our churches.

This is an issue that crosses denominational barriers.  We might find it interesting that the one thing held in common by almost all religious groups in North America- liberal, conservative, contemporary, traditional, independent, denominational, Protestant, Catholic-is the presence of clergy killers. 

Clergy killers are nothing new.  Paul had a run-in with Alexander the coppersmith and John was prepared to confront Diotrephes.  But since Watergate, there has been a tendency to idolize the individual or small group that can take down the powerful.  As our society has become more narcissistic, the rise of the clergy killer has followed suit.  It is now epidemic and I believe threatens the survival and ministry of the church in the Americas.

As a consultant, I have worked across the spectrum of American Christianity.  I have some knowledge of what happens in Episcopal/Anglican, Baptist, Methodist, Presbyterian, Church of God, Assembly of God, Catholic, and Non-denominational churches.  But my heritage, training, and heart are in the Christian Church and Churches of Christ tribe of the Restoration Movement.  For that reason, I will address this issue from that perspective.  Being a non-denominational fellowship my comments and suggestions may not specifically fit readers of other fellowships, but I believe there are general principles that will be insightful or useful. 

I want to address three points.  First, how extensive is this problem?  Next week, I will offer a few opinions about what are some of the implications for the future of the church.  Finally, I will suggest what we might be able to do about the issue of the clergy killer phenomenon, with a list of resources you might find helpful.

How extensive is this problem?

This rise of clergy killers, combined with the failure to recognize a ministers’ Biblical authority in the face of attacks by sick members and the decisions of some boards to make short term and often money-based decisions in dealing with attackers, has left many ministers suffering in silence and feeling abandoned and alone.  Frequently, the answer to this silent, lonely suffering is to leave the ministry.

Late night calls are usually not good news.  This one came at just after 10:00 PM.  The news, though not unexpected, was sad.  “I was fired tonight,” the voice on the other end of the line informed me, in a tone that was artificially flat and emotionless.  I knew the church this young minister served had a reputation for being brutal to preachers and I knew that he had been having trouble for a long time, so his dismissal was not unexpected. 

After we had conversed for a few minutes, he got around to telling me why he called.  “I’m done with vocational ministry.  I can do more good as a teacher somewhere.”  It had happed again.  A young, promising minister was leaving the ministry.  He was not leaving because of moral failure, rejection of Jesus’ Lordship, or loss of faith.  He made the choice to leave the ministry because of the abusive behavior of a troubled church.  I wish this were the only time I had such a conversation, but it is not.  It is not even the worst of these conversations.

Perhaps the saddest conversation I have had was with George (not his real name).  Sparing you the details, I will tell you he was brutalized in a church coup.  He survived and managed to keep the church from splitting, but at tremendous personal cost.  The church lost several families; unfortunately, those that left were not his antagonists.  So he lived with the reality that at anytime he might face another coup.  He felt he was too old to relocate, too old to start a new career, and too weary for another church fight.  His solution was to exist and do nothing to rock the boat.  He would keep a low profile, and take on no innovative changes or ministry.  He would keep his job till he was able to retire in six years.  The look in his eyes as we talked was the hollow look of a defeated man.  With years of ministry and sermons behind him, he could go through the motions till retirement without much effort.   

These are certainly sad cases.  But two cases do not indicate an epidemic.  Perhaps they were weak, overly sensitive, and needing to grow up.  In both cases, I had known these men for years.  They were good men, solid leaders with tender hearts and gifted to minister.  One served in a near urban setting in an established church, the other in a young congregation in a rapidly growing, outer suburb.   Neither was the sort that would cut and run from a problem.  Their stories are just part of a much larger issue.  How big?

First, let’s take a look at the numbers:

·      Typically, within 7 to 10 years after ordination more than half of ministers will leave the ministry as a career.

·      It is estimated that 90% of ministers will not stay in ministry long enough to retire from ministry.

·      100% of pastors surveyed had a close associate or seminary friend who had left the ministry.

·      89% of pastors have considered leaving the ministry and not just on Monday morning.

·      57% of pastors said they would leave their current position if they had a better place to go, including secular work.

·      77% of pastors felt they did not have a good marriage!

·      90% of pastors stated they are frequently fatigued.

·      71% of pastors stated they were burned out and they battle depression beyond fatigue on a weekly and even a daily basis.

·      33% of pastors feel burned out within the first five years.

Perhaps most telling

·      23% of the pastors surveyed said they felt happy and content on a regular basis with who they are in Christ, in their church, and in their home! 

Of those who have the great privilege of answering God’s call, of sharing the greatest message in the universe, of working with the bride of Christ, of the study and proclamation of the Word of God, of living in and working in the atmosphere of Divine grace, less than one in four is happy and content.

The church cannot long sustain the loss of her ministers.  We may soon reach a tipping point for the church in America.  As indicated by:   

·      1,500 pastors leave the ministry monthly citing discouragement, failure, and loneliness as some of the reasons.

·      According the Bureau of Labor Statistics, for every worker entering vocational ministry, 2.7 are leaving.

            Long before most ministers have enough experience to begin to approach anything near full effectiveness, they will leave the ministry.  But these are more than stories of career changes; these stories represent a dream that has been shattered, a calling left unfulfilled and a life that has been wrecked.  Ministers may suffer silently, but there are not suffering alone.  The church as a whole, the innocents in the congregation, their families, and the lost are suffering with them.

Next week, we will look at some of the implications of what the clergy killer crisis means for the church as a whole.

Politics is a symptom and is not the problem.

I, like you perhaps, have grown weary of the presidential race.  While I prefer democracy, having a king that rules till his death would mean we would not have to endure a presidential election every 4 years and the absence of campaigning would be a real advantage. 

The rhetoric of those running for office convinced my wife and me that to prepare for Easter we would not listen to any news during Lent.  That was such a delight, we have, to a great degree, continued fasting from political news and talk.  This is not anti-left or anti-right; we are equal opportunity fasters. 

After Easter Sunday one day, I tuned in to listen to the political news and talk.  I listened to both NPR and Sean Hannity.  It dawned on me that the problem with our political leaders is they reflect our nation.  They look and act like the people in our America.  Trump and Clinton, for example, are just the acceleration of our nation as a whole.

With our politicians, it is almost as if you took our culture, values, social mores, and world-view and processed them down into a highly concentrated form.   We love our candidate and hate the others because we love ourselves and hate those who might oppose us.  I don’t believe that those running for president are so very different from us.  I believe they are a reflection of us, but in a more intense fashion.  We are pastel, they are vivid; we are mild, they are intense; we are restrained, they are emboldened. 

To quote the song "Cult Of Personality" by Living Colour:

Look in my eyes, what do you see?

The cult of personality

I know your anger, I know your dreams

I've been everything you want to be

While we are quoting, let’s grab a couple from the front-runners.

From Donald Trump we have arrogance in a highly refined form.

"My IQ is one of the highest — and you all know it! Please don't feel so stupid or insecure; it's not your fault."

“The beauty of me is that I’m very rich.”

From Hillary Clinton there is a certain self-importance that marks her speech.

"If you want to remain on this detail, get your f***ing ass over here and grab those bags!"
(To a Secret Service Agent who was reluctant to carry her luggage because he wanted to keep his hands free in case of an incident.)

"Stay the f**k back, stay the f**k away from me! Don't come within ten yards of me, or else! Just f**king do as I say, Okay!!!?"
(Screaming at her Secret Service detail.)

I believe that our culture is marked by arrogance and self-importance.  A professor of mine once said, “The beauty and problem with democracy is that we end up with the leaders we deserve.”  While I will not support either of these candidates, I do believe they both reflect the contemporary American condition.

Let me be painfully honest; I believe it is the church that is to blame.  Had the church been salt and light in the world over the last 50 years we might find a different America.  In many cases churches and church leaders have been most concerned about self-promotion and building their own kingdoms, rather than building the Kingdom.  As a consultant, I have worked on multi-constituent campaigns in which preachers refuse to participate because they wanted to protect their turf. 

Because the church has failed to live and love as servant-leaders, the world has no example.  Because congregations have been building empires, the world has no counter culture to the culture of self.  Because we have made idols of mega-star Christians and pastors, the world has lost it moral compass.  Philippians 2 tells of the God of the universe becoming a servant and dying on a cross.  That is a humility we almost never see in politics, because we see it so rarely in our nation, because it is too little practiced and taught in the church.

In contrast to the quotes of Trump and Clinton, let’s consider a quote from John the Baptist, “He must increase, but I must decrease.” 

Scrooge of Easter

I am not a “Scrooge”, contrary to the assertions of many of my closest friends and even a few family members.  I dislike the way Christmas has turned into a hype of spending and commercialism.  Perhaps the holiday ought to be renamed, “Consumer Day”.  Christmas has lost much, if not most, of its worship and reverence.  My rejection of what is happening in Christmas is not because I am a Scrooge type character.  I prefer to be called a Christmas purist.

It is sad, but it appears the same thing has happened to Easter.  I am also an Easter purist.  Easter has been turned into a springtime version of Consumer Day, er…, I mean Christmas.  And the invitation to spend to excess has crept into what ought to be the holiest day of the year.  The camel got his nose into the tent with a few small treats for children, the purchase of gift baskets filled not simply with treats but gifts, to the question, “What do you want the Easter Bunny to bring you?”   Sadly, many churches seem to be leading this charge to secularize Easter and rob it of its beauty and meaning.  It appeared that something backfired this Easter and maybe, just maybe, we can gain a warning. 

Over the last few years, a fad (and I use that in its most derisive sense of the word) has swept into churches’ Easter plans, the helicopter egg drop (HED).  In these events, a church hires a helicopter to fly over tossing out plastic eggs filled with prizes, and, once the bomb run has passed, masses of people rush on to the field to greedily gather the eggs.   An HED is expensive.  One report I read said that for 10,000 eggs and a fairly short flight for the chopper, a church can expect to spend up to $10,000.   We might suspect that only mega churches try this.  Not true, a small church (less than 100 in attendance) near my home did an HED last year.  The rational for an HED is simple: 1) it is wonderful community activity which leads to, 2) positive disposition and popularity in the community for the church which will lead to, 3) better attendance at Sunday services.   (I will resist the urge to talk about how much these three motivations are like the temptations of our Savior in the wilderness.)

Something happened this year that ought to cause us to stop and ask, “Is an HED or other gimmick a good idea?”  Lifepoint Church in Plano, TX, planned an HED.  The resulting crowds and disorderliness made it impossible for the event to take place.  Read the details here: http://thescoopblog.dallasnews.com/2016/03/no-eggs-for-you-helicopter-easter-egg-drop-canceled-after-crowd-overwhelms-plano-church.html/

I do not blame the church or the staff for the behavior of sinful people.  We should not expect that sinful people would behave like good Christian people.  However, when a church appeals to the selfish, fallen human nature we might expect bad behavior.  I applaud the church for its desire to reach the community.  I am sure they do a great many wonderful things.  But it appears that Lifepoint and the church in America, is often willing, for the sake of popularity, to squander the holy and sacred.  In the exchange for a little temporary publicity and press, we lose the ability to speak of eternal things. 

Consider this alternative to next year’s HED.  For a few weeks before Easter call the church to a season of deep, painful, and passionate, fasting, meditation and repentance.  Let the church celebrate the week before Easter with a close review of what our Lord did in His last week.  Mark Lord’s Supper Thursday and Good Friday with special prayer and worship.  Use Saturday before Easter to serve the least, the last, and the lost.  Worship Sunday and if you want to spend $10,000, hold a feast for the hungry, destitute, or homeless.  My hero once said, “Let your light shine before men in such a way, that they may see your good works, and glorify your Father who is in heaven.”

Pray for the Lifepoint church, that this fiasco will not inhibit the witness for Christ.  And if we want to look above for a great Easter, let’s look to our resurrected Lord not a Sikorsky!

Cinderella, Walt Disney and the American Church

If you have never read an older version of the Cinderella story you might not know that it has very little resemblance to the Walt Disney retelling of the story.  In the version provided for us by the Brothers Grimm there is no fairy godmother, no helpful mice, or pumpkin carriage.  In this older version Cinderella’s stepsisters are very beautiful, her father is a jerk toward her and her help comes from her dead mother and two birds that tend to hover about Cinderella’s mother’s grave, and the story is violent and bloody.  

This old story was a cautionary fable for children to teach them to be “devout and good”.  The Disney version was an entertainment effort designed to make money for the Disney Corporation.  Disney could not have been true to the original version and get the film to theaters.  Some scenes would not have been palatable for Pollyanna consumers of children’s entertainment.  For example, when the prince arrives with the golden slipper the eldest stepsister tries the shoe on in private, but her foot will not fit.

But her great toe prevented her getting it on.  Her foot was too long.

Then her mother handed her a knife and said, “Cut off the toe. When you are Queen you won’t have to walk any more.”

The girl cut off her toe, forced her foot into the slipper, stifled her pain, and went out to the prince. 

 It was only on the way to the palace, tipped off by the birds, that the prince notices the bloody trail following them and hence he returned the older sister.  The second sister was able to get her toes into the shoe, but her heel was too big and so at the insistence of her mother she cut off her heel.  The results were the same.  On the way to the palace the prince, tipped off by the birds, again noticed the bloody trail.  One wonders how bright this prince was.  He returns the second daughter and then Cinderella tries on the shoe and it fits.  But the story is not done.  The stepsisters come to the church for the wedding hoping to curry favor with Cinderella and as they are going into the church the two birds attack them and each girl has an eye pecked out.  After the ceremony, as they were coming out of the church, the birds attack again and each girl has her remaining eye plucked out. 

The story doesn’t end with the happy married couple riding off in a carriage to live happily ever after.  The ending is not really about Cinderella at all.  It concludes with; “And so for their wickedness and falseness they were punished with blindness for the rest of their days.” This ending seems more Alfred Hitchcock than Walt Disney. 

In order to get parents in 1950 to spend money, and take their children to the theater Disney had to soften the hard, sharp edges of the story.  The optimistic and positive outlook of the 50’s would not be consistent with the self-mutilation and avian savagery of the older version.  To be successful, Disney had to give the people what they wanted, a story that was as hopeful as the American Dream. 

I fear that the church in America in the last generation has done much the same thing as Disney.   We have taken the edge off the message because, we think, people will not respond well to a message that is negative.  People want to hear ‘good news’ at church, but we have miss-defined good news.  We have defined good news down to personal peace and affluence.  I know a preacher that was once told by his leadership team to preach, “sermons that make people feel good”. 

I recently listened to the song “Hold Me” by Jamie Grace.  If the word "Lord" is an interjection, this is simply a love song of a girl for her boyfriend.  If the word "Lord" is a reference to the King of the universe, this song is the religious pabulum that makes up 'contemporary Christian' culture.  We have had to drop some key themes from the message of the Gospel in order to make is sellable to the masses.

I believe the Gospel is good news; it is, in fact, the greatest news.  But the message of the Gospel has no good news until we first explain the bad news.  Until we understand the bad news we have no way to value the good news.  Without hearing the bad news the message we have is little more than, “You are a nice person, but you may have a few little issues and your life is pretty good, but Jesus makes you, and everything else, better.”  If that is truly the message of the Bible, then it is a small wonder that the church in American is in rapid decline. 

But if the bad news is: “You are doomed, dead, lost and hopeless.  Your life on earth is a mere temporary reprieve from a just and fair punishment of utter isolation in a torment that is beyond imagination and is eternal.  At your very best you are vile, dirty, disgusting and as wholesome as a used tampon (Isaiah 64:6).  But the whole account of your evil and wickedness debt has been transferred to Jesus.  On the Cross He has made possible for His perfection and holiness to be transferred to you. It is yours completely free.”  When we hear the good new in light of the bad news, we see it really is the best news.

We do not need a Disney version of Christianity; there is just too much at stake for us to offer anything less than the good news of the Cross. 

A Cycle of Dangerous Prayers

You may have heard or even said something like, “Don’t pray for patience!”  We say that in a sort of joking way.   We believe that if we pray for patience, rather than God supernaturally zapping us with patience, He will instead provide us trying opportunities in which we can exercise patience and there by grow patience.  While we say, “don’t pray for patience” as a joke, behind that joke is a terrible accusation.  We are in an off hand way accusing God of evil, giving us something that is not good for us rather than admitting we are selfish and impatient and want to stay that way. If God gives it to us it is for our good, even if it is difficult, painful or something that we don’t want.  Praying for patience is a ‘hard prayer’.

When we ask God to do nice things for us, or to give us things we want, or take away trouble we are praying what I call “safe prayers”.  There is nothing wrong with these kinds of prayers, but for the most part they require very little from us.  But when we pray the hard prayers we are entering into dangerous territory.  I believe that God will rescue us if our following Him takes us to dangerous places.  But God never promises that we will not go to the dangerous place, and sometimes that rescue may come in the form of death, which takes us to glory. Hard or dangerous prayers are where we ask for change in ourselves, where we ask to die to self, and dying to self is never easy.  It maybe those are the best kinds of prayers, but often they are answered in ways that are far from easy.  They are answered when we meet the living God; they are answered in brokenness, repentance and often in great sorrow.   There are answered in changes in our life, changes we likely would not have undertaken without God’s prompting.  They bring about changes we might not have wanted, at least at first. 

In my work as a church coach I teach church members to pray what I call a cycle of prayers.  They are a cycle because it would be very difficult to put them in any kind of order.  You can’t say, “This prayer follows that prayer as 2 follows 1.  Rather these prayers inform each other and shape each other and, hopefully, enrich each other.  As we pray through these prayers we learn about ourselves and find a need to pray them again and again.

Prayer #1

“Holy Spirit bring your loving judgment on me.  Convict me and make me profoundly uncomfortable where my life does not please you.”

Jesus said in John 16 that, “He ( the Holy Spirit) will convict the world”, there is a lot of worldliness still in me.  On the one hand we are honestly unaware of how sinful we are.  On the other hand we are actually pretty proficient at white washing, managing and soft selling our sin.

We have the problem of wanting God to fix everyone else, but leave us alone.  This first prayer is about asking God to reveal our own personal sinfulness and personal wickedness and bring us under such conviction that we come to repentance. 

As you pray this you might want to read and meditate on John 16:7-11

Prayer #2

“Father I surrender to you my rights, my will, and my control” 

God is a giving God.  He gave us life, He gave us His word, and most dramatically He gave His only begotten Son.  He is a giver!  Jesus is a giver.  He gave his life for us.  He gave His body and blood for us.  He gives us a home in Heaven.  He is a giver!  The Holy Spirit is a giver.  He gives us Himself to live in us and He gives us gifts for the purpose of ministry.  NOW HAVING BEEN ADOPTED INTO THIS FAMILY how can we not give ourselves to God.  I believe the great heresy of the 21 century church will be the teaching that God’s ultimate purpose and will is for us to have abundant financial and physical blessings.   No doubt God does sometimes bless in these ways but his greatest will for us is that we die to self so we can live to him.

As you pray this you might want to read and meditate on Luke 9:22-24

Prayer #3

“Lord what do You want to do through me.” 

There are a lot of people who do a lot or religious stuff that has nothing, whatsoever, to do with God.  We pray for what we want, try to pretend it is God’s will, then we get mad at God if we don’t get our way.  As long as we are making the decisions and calling the shots we will not see the hand of God at work, and we will remain an angry, frustrated, discontent people. 

When we pray “God what should I do” notice who is doing it, and guess who will get the glory.  We are incapable of the heroic changes that God wants to work in our lives if we are doing it in our strength.

As you pray this you might want to read and meditate on Matthew 7:21

Like praying for patience these prayers may not bring about ease and comfort.  They may bring about serious heart ache and struggle.  But God will meet us in these dangerous places and there do His great work of transforming us into the image of His Son.

Note: I didn’t originate any of these prayers they came from three different teachers I have known.